Tiger Heat: German Panzers on the Eastern Front

In September 1942, Hitler demanded that armoured production reach 1,400 vehicles per month by spring 1944, including 600 Panthers. The Adolf Hitler Panzer Program put forward by Albert Speer’s Ministry of Armaments and War Production in January 1943 was only 1,200 armoured vehicles per month. Infuriated, Hitler summoned Speer for a meeting at which he increased the production objective to 1,500–2,000 vehicles per month. This was comparable to Soviet or American production. Again, the complex designs and continued bombing of factories in Germany meant this target was never met. However, Hitler did manage to double tank production as greater priority was given to armoured vehicle production. In 1942, 6,180 vehicles were produced and in 1943, 12,013 vehicles were produced.

Reliability dogged the Panther with around one-quarter of the Panther tanks deployed in the panzer regiments being operational at any given time. Teething problems with any new system is commonplace, but the Panther was worse than average. One example was the Panther’s AK 7-200 transmission. It had been designed for mass production and in doing so compromises had been made to speed up production. The original MAN proposal had called for the Panther to have a planetary gearing system in the final drive, like that used in the Tiger I. A shortage of gear-cutting machine tools and that the Panther was intended to be mass-produced numerous compromises were made against the designers wishes. The compromises effectively weakened the transmission.

Multigeared steering that permitted the Panther to pivot turn by running the tracks on one side in one direction and the other in the opposite direction. This meant the Panther could turn on its own pivot. However, this just added to the already badly overstressed transmission as this high-torque method of turning could cause failures of the final drive and caused premature stripping of the third gear. The more serious transmission problem was the final drive, which had a nominal life expectancy of 1000 miles. In practice, this was sometimes as low as 100 miles. Another factor was the difficulty in getting to the transmission for repairs, which necessitated a full strip down of the front portion of the tank just to get to the transmission. The single-teeth spur gears tended to strip more readily than the more robust double herringbone design used on other tanks such as the American M4 Sherman. To replace the transmission, the mechanics had to unbolt a heavy rectangular plate from the hull roof above the radio operator. The mechanics would need to unbolt the transmission from the hull and drive shafts, before a crane was used to lift it out of the tank. Before a new one was lowered in and bolted down. This could take nearly a day for a skilled team of mechanics.

Although, some shortcomings were slowly addressed over the Panthers service life particularly in 1943. One example being the Panther’s engine compartment that had been designed to be waterproof. This had led to engine overheating due to poor ventilation in early Panthers. Fuel connectors on the early Panthers were non-insulated, leading to the leakage of fuel fumes into the engine compartment. This led to engine fires in the early Panthers. Extra ventilation was added to draw off these gases. Although this only partly solved the problem of engine fires. To reduce this problem, the coolant circulation inside the motor was improved and they added a reinforced membrane spring to the fuel pump. The Panther had a very solid firewall to protect the crew from an engine fire.

The Panther’s operational rate rose from a very low 16% at the end of July 1943 nearly double but still poor 37% by December 1943. An improved version, confusingly called the Panther Ausf. A, entered production in August 1943. This version standardized improvements that had been gradually introduced into the Panther Ausf. D and included an improved turret with a new commander’s cupola. Additional changes continued to be incorporated into the design through 1943 and into 1944. These improvements began to influence the availability rate of the tanks deployed on the Eastern Front, going 37% percent in February 1944 to 78% by the end of May 1944.